The best way to learn to read/navigate with a map?

[voodoo_simon]

OS have stopped selling flat Landrangers, which is a real pain in the ass.

Being a bit dense but what do you mean? Flat maps as in non folding ones found in outdoors shops?

[jay91]

Did some orienteering in my schooldays - the maps are very specific but definitely good for thinking on your feet.

Done lots of fell running, not too much navigation required in these. Only did one mountain marathon and I found the navigation to be pretty straightforward TBH, just one control on each day was hard to find, that on the second day was due to heavy rain turning every reentrant in to a stream but only one was marked on the map

One thing that's quite useful is to act as navigator in a car: you can tick off features as you pass them - "edge of wood with track on left", "100 metres then farm lane on right"; etc. Gets you used to matching the map to the landscape.

Navigating isn't so much a single technique but mixing and matching several techniques but perhaps the main one is not to get lost in the first place It's much harder to relocate (fancy term for working out where you are) than it is to keep on top of things. You need to keep verifying your position every few minutes or at each major feature that way if you do get temporarily unsure of your location then you've got a smaller area of confusion. Leaving things for half an hour while you pedal blindly on is only going to make your job harder, five minutes on a bike is maybe half a mile or a mile at most off road, half an hour could be five or six miles. The techniques themselves aren't hard to learn, it's knowing which one to apply in any given situation.

The last time I got lost was in Scotland, I was walking up a couple of Munros and the route description stated that at the top of the first you should follow the old fence line down to the col to get to the second. Easy! I had a map, unfortunately it only had the first top on it. More awkwardly the cloud was down. So I got to the first summit and followed the fence line. It was only when I dropped out of the cloud that I realised I was wrong as I was staring at a glen not a col and second peak. Fences go in two directions Back to the summit and down the way I'd come. It turns out that the fence line heading to the col was missing quite a few posts so I'd missed it.

Useful books: Mountain navigation for Fell runners by Martin Bagness; The Peter Cliff book; Scotland's Winter Mountains by Martin Moran.

The first might be hard to get hold of now, I think it has been republished as an ebook.

That's for the advice mate

[ScotRoutes]

OS have stopped selling flat Landrangers, which is a real pain in the ass.

That one on my wall is made up of lots of A3s

That's an option I'm considering for a similar wall. In only have an A4 printer though

[ScotRoutes]

OS have stopped selling flat Landrangers, which is a real pain in the ass.

Being a bit dense but what do you mean? Flat maps as in non folding ones found in outdoors shops?

Yep. You used to be able to buy them rolled up rather than folded. Although you can iron them with reasonable results I'd prefer proper flat ones for wallpapering with. Have you found some shops still selling them like this?

[whitestone]

Well you must have a flat sheet to begin with to be able to fold it down so it's most likely a demand and supply thing. The only maps I've ever seen that are sold flat are the large scale (either 1:1250 or 1:2500) maps used by farmers and others for land registration purposes. They are of a scale where you get a single 1Km by 1Km square per map/sheet.

Other than those I suspect that there is very little demand for an unfolded map so why would shops stock them.

[ScotRoutes]

OK. I'll try again. The OS used to sell maps that weren't folded. I imagine that the market was quite small - schools, offices, hotels, B&Bs, tourist information centres, visitor centres and the sad map geeks like me. Nonetheless, they were available.

Now, they no longer do. Nor do they print them to allow other retailers to sell them

Is that any clearer?

[psling]

They still do flat 'wall mounted' maps BUT... they're under custom maps and cost considerably more money (c £16.99); the plus is that you can specify the area covered (I think they're 20km x 20km in 1:25000).

EDIT: just read page 1 of this thread and see that I am repeating that which has already been said

[ScotRoutes]

They still do flat 'wall mounted' maps BUT... they're under custom maps and cost considerably more money (c £16.99); the plus is that you can specify the area covered (I think they're 20km x 20km in 1:25000).

EDIT: just read page 1 of this thread and see that I am repeating that which has already been said

Aye - a bit expensive when you need nine of them to paper a wall